Spore (2026)

Portable percussion - 4 players

• 5 minutes, 30 seconds

Note

When writing this piece I wanted to explore all the various timbral qualities of these toys as a sort of sound mass. Rather than create a piece that was groove-based, I wanted to explore the shifting quality of the sounds themselves. The group mainly acts as a unified sound emitter - a sort of continuous, scrapping machine that devours as it exists. The jangling, metallic world of the sounds morph over time in such a way that pulse is deliberately not felt, even when the players gradually lock into a unified, gamelan-esque rhythm halfway through. The intention is for the piece to feel like an organic, sometimes manic, and kaleidoscopic evolving of material. As the metallic sounds come to a close they are replaced by what felt to me to be the polar opposite of the established world: the stacked, grotesque harmony that comes from multiple bottles being blown into. This leads to the most lyrical section of the piece which then slides into an aleatoric, breathy, sound-bed with explosive interjections and then silence.

Note for instruments: For the writing of this piece, the handbells and cowbells were purchased in May of 2026 at a Michaels craft store in Pasadena, California. The handbells (all of which were a gold color) were all roughly the same pitches. For the cowbells (also gold), I seemingly lucked out with one of them being distinctly lower in pitch than the others. The item numbers for these exact items are listed below for purchasing for this piece.

Wood Handle Liberty Bell by Creatology ($5.49): Item # 10240520
Creatology Cowbell ($5.49): Item # 10400811

Score